Graffiti Garages

Update: As of June, 2016 the space had been painted white and closed to artists. 

Most parking garages and other structures that act as vandalism magnets see graffiti as a constant annoyance, but the Graffiti Garages in Tacoma, Washington have embraced street art and the surrounding neighborhood is reaping the rewards.

The Graffiti Garages in downtown Tacoma are a working parking garage where anyone can legally paint the walls on Sundays. In an effort to curb vandalism and street crime across the board, some forward thinkers on the city planning committee agreed to open the space to street artists once a week so that they could congregate there instead of marking up businesses and public walls elsewhere. After some initial issues with gang tagging, the experiment seems to have worked and the space has become a positive artistic outlet for people, and a meeting place for alternative artistic culture and community. As a result of this space, vandalism in the area has dropped drastically and the neighborhood as a whole has taken an upturn. Apparently if you want to fix a broken window, sometimes you have to build a glass house.